Unemployment and Underemployment Mythbusting

According to the current conservative narrative, the unemployed and underemployed are what they are because they are lazy. They’re not doing what it takes to get a job. They’re not willing to get educated for the so-called Jobs Of Tomorrow. They’re not willing to step down to take a job that doesn’t pay enough to cover their rent.

It couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that nationwide, there are more than 3 unemployed people for every 1 job opening. Nope, that couldn’t be a factor.

It couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that some help wanted ads are written to require an impossible montage of skills, and employers aren’t interested in spending more than 3 minutes training someone. Nope, easier to hire nobody. Easier to whine to the Feds that there are no qualified Americans and we need to import an underpaid foreigner who allegedly has these skills. I say suspend the H-1B program until unemployment is under 6%!

If getting a degree were some kind of magic “get a good job” spell, we wouldn’t have hundreds of thousands of people with graduate degrees taking food stamps.

Let’s stop victim-blaming when it comes to unemployment. Attacking the work ethic of most unemployed people is like blaming a rape victim for wearing a skirt. We need to focus on the real issues that cause unemployment.

In Closing: sounds like hype to me; avocados; Shaun T makes Dr. Oz sweat; geeks; and animal research.